We can predict by a contrastive study of the mother tongue of the pornpros learner and the target language where the differences and hence the learner's difficulties lie. There are four problems here; all have been discussed in the preceding chapters. Firstly, contrastive studies are technically very difficult and we do not yet have any satisfactory accounts of the differences between languages; secondly, it does not appear always to be the case that a difference means a difficulty; thirdly, learners may avoid showing their hand' in spontaneous speech or writing. If they believe they do not know some aspect of the target language they will probably avoid, if they can, putting it to the test. 'Errors' do not, therefore, give a true Freaks of Cock picture of what the learner does or does not know. Lastly, we should have to make separate test instruments for every group of learners, depending on their mother tongue, but also, of course, depending on how long they have been learning. And what about heterogeneous groups of learners who all have different mother tongues ? |